Bishop Barron’s Sunday Sermons - Catholic Preaching and Homilies

Jesus tells his followers that those who love their mothers and fathers more than him are not worthy of him. This shocking claim is not meant to encourage hatred of one's family! It is meant to force us into a clear prioritization of values: God must be first, without condition, compromise or cavil.

The Christian disciple is truly free in the measure that he is not afraid. Thomas More couldn't be compromised, precisely because he couldn't be frightened by the loss of earthly goods. Jesus tells his disciples not to be afraid even of those who can kill the body. In faith, we are connected to that power which transcends space and time, life and death.

In describing the pity that Jesus felt for the crowds, Matthew uses a distinctive Greek term that means, literally, "his guts were moved." God's compassion for the world is a gut-wrenching, visceral desire to address human suffering. The instrument that Jesus chooses to express this compassion are the twelve apostles, prototypes of the Church.

One of the great conversion stories in the New Testament is the account of the call of St. Matthew. Jesus summons the worldly tax-gatherer and Matthew rises from his post to follow the Lord. In the symbolic language of the Bible, this "rising" evokes the elevation to a higher and richer life: intimacy with Jesus.

On this feast of Corpus Christ, we reflect on the inexhaustibly rich theme of the Eucharist. The particular motif I pursue in this homily is that of the eucharist as food for eternal life. Eating the body and drinking the blood of Jesus fits us for the rarified atmosphere of a heavenly existence.